7 Horrible Lessons Cartoons Teaches Children

I must admit I am old, a guy from a past century. Growing up changes everyone, the vision of the world and its mechanics we have when we are young is pretty much completely different today. that is why I have trouble liking any new cartoon when compared to old ones. And it is not a question of quality, many old cartoons were awful in its day, but children don't know better. They are mesmerized by them.

And that is why some lessons those old cartoons implied are so horrifying know I am grown up. Lessons like:

7. You can do whatever you want if you are cute or a kid:

As seem in: Tom and Jerry, Dennis the Menace, Chip'n'Dale, basically all cartoon with kids or animals.

See, in many Chip'n'Dale cartoons, specially the ones with Donald Duck, Donald is the villain, stealing the cute critters nuts or mocking them. But in many of them, Donald is taking care of his life and his property and Chip'n'Dale decide that fuck private property, they will got what they want. In one particular episode, Donald have a apple farm, and is caring of his trees, implied to be his sustenance method. Until the two furry friends decides that they want to have free apples. Donald do whatever he can to get rid of the two plagues who are destroying his apples. And in the end, he is the one who who loses the battle.

Yes, the lesson intended should be  to share, but Donald don't have to do it. And once he denied the two free apples, they should accept it. it is Donald's apples after all. The lesson children may learn is that if someone have too many of something, he must share with them. And if they don't, pest them until they give what you want.

Dennis the Menace is another case. I never saw him stealing, but a lot of trespassing and destruction of private property. Dennis destroyed a whole automated car factory once and no sign of punishment against his misbehavior. And it is not just this one case. Basically he can't pass a day without endangered his life, the life of others and destroying something. And nobody do anything against it. the 'he is just a child' only cut it if this was rare occurrences. Dennis' parents would had lost his guard long ago if they show to be so incompetent to keep their child out of trouble. And destroying someone's property.

But apparently, if you are cute enough, everything can be forgiven. And speaking of parents...

6. Parents are Imbeciles:

As seem in: Fairly OddParents, The Simpsons.

Parents are clueless, borderline retard people. They will believe in any lie told by the smarter kids they have and will not notice the most basic tricks to skip classes or gain any kind of undeserved reward. They will not question how you can buy so many cool things, and no, the internet doesn't give free stuff around, trust me.

They also don't have any reliable counsel to give and you are at your own. The groundskeeper at your school or the hobo at the park have more wisdom them your parents.  the thing is: never listen to your parents. they know nothing and if you want to solve your problems you need to do it yourself.

Except that your parents are probably clever and smarter than you, because they lived longer and have way more experience than their children. And they were children too, so they know a lot of tricks you are using right now thinking you are so smart.

Different from the teachers...

5. Teachers just exists to avoid you have fun:

As seem in: Any cartoon with a school.

Teachers and the principal (sometimes the vice-principal) have only one mission in life. To make sure children never, ever have fun. They don't want they to play, to smile, laugh or do anything pleasant at all. Kids needs to be the most unhappy people in the world.

Of course, school, with all the homework and pesky rules is, at the eyes of the children, a unfunny place, where for some reason they are forced to go. And the teachers are there to keep sure you suffer and to have the most boring days of your life.

But you know, they are trying to avoid that the kids ended up as a illiterate hobo. Or even kill themselves with a dare to jump from the tallest place in the school. See, school have an obligation to make sure the kids learn and get back to their parents in one piece. It is very hard to explain to parents what the teachers and the principal was doing when some kid broke his neck falling of a chair while dancing the conga in it.

4. Going in 'adventures' always ends well:

As seem in: Again, basically any cartoon where the kids are the stars.

As we (and by that I mean cartoons) already defined, parents are stupid and teachers just want to kill all the fun, so, when the kids and their 'gang' decides to enter that nice wood or creepy abandoned house, they know that they will have a blast of a fun time and that the place will hold great secrets to discover. The kids may even arrest all by themselves some criminal using the place to make fake money!

Except that things tend to not go so well. The abandoned place can and probably is a very dangerous place, with all kind of sharp things and collapsing structures. That woods can be home of poisonous and/or dangerous animals. Oh, the criminals can be very real too, except they will not fake them to be some ghosts, but likely will kill the hell out of any kid who can blow up their cover.

See, it is okay to incentive the kids to meet the world, but a responsible adult would never let them do it unsupervised. The world is a dangerous place, specially if you have only 50kg and 1,20 meters. And the common sense of a potato.

But when one of them is smarter than a tasty root...

3. The Group is always right:

As seem in: The Get Along Gang, Dungeons and Dragons, 80's cartoons.

So, the kids on your 'gang' decide to go inside the creepy house. One kid try to remember them of all the spiders, rusty nails and falling pieces of would that it may have inside.Or that they should call the police instead of capturing the hidden criminal themselves. The other kids will either mock him or convince him to go with them. And of course, because the one kid against the idea agrees, everyone have fun together.

Except that individuality is a thing. If all the group wants to go for a pizza and one person wants to go for a hamburger, he must cave in and go with everyone. The lesson is that you cannot have an opinion different from the group, you must always follows everyone and all will be right.

And when everyone decides to jump of a cliff, it is the obligation of everyone in the group to do the exact same thing.

2. Kids must always follows the adults in dangerous situations:

As seem in: Speed Racer, He-man, Superfriends, many others.

So, your father is a cop? He must be some kind of hero! Spending a day with him must be all fun! but like your teachers, your father don't let you go with him, because you are a little child. What they know!? Countless cartoons told you that you can just hide in the trunk/bag of him and when you show up, they will let you tag along! Damn, even if he is not your father, he will let will tag. And you will probably be the one who saves the day at the end.

Oh, yeah. They will not let any kid do that no matter what. The firemen will not give you a cool coat and hat and let you ride the firetruck. They will contact your parents, probably the social service and sent the kid right away from any danger you can get into. And that is the least dangerous thing it can happen.

They can put their very lives and everyone around in danger. Getting in a trunk can suffocate the kid very fast, because trunks are not made to open from the inside (and in the case of the Mach 5, not even from outside, considering it have no locks). You can frozen in the cargo bay of an airplane. And getting a ride in an unknown ship will hardly take the kids to sea adventures and foreign countries, but a ride back home in a coast guard ship at best and many seamen over them at worst.

1. No matter what mistake you make, an apology and some light work always fix everything:

As seen in: too many cartoons to cite.

So, the kids goes to their adventures, despite all grown ups being against it. But since the kids know better, they are in for a great time. Oh, yes, except when they completely destroy the classic old car of old man Willie when trying to chase that criminal with it. So, know that they have made so much damage, they need to amend for it. so they apologize to Willie and help him to take care of the garden and repair the car while they discover old man Willie to be the funniest old man in the town.

In real life, any of those shenanigans would result in cops, tribunals and a lot of money in compensations. The parents of those kids would have to fork a lot of money to repair the car and for all psychological anguish the kids done to an old man. Instead of being rewarded for arresting the criminal (that is, if not a single one of the kids dies or goes to the hospital), the police would not praise them, they would go on TV to state how much dangerous those kids were in and how they almost let a dangerous criminal escape because they didn't call the cops from start.

You who is reading this may say that many of those cartoons shows this kind of consequences or try to show that kids are not always right. Yes, many of them had touched this topic. But if you have met any kids, you know they aren't very smart. The chances of them only learn the 'let's have fun no matter what' is probably way more compelling than 'let's be careful and listen to the elders' one.